On the 29th of December, 2012, at approximately midnight and while Ahmed Humaidan and his friends were entering the city center shopping mall, 15 men in civilian clothing, who are believed to belong to the security forces, surrounded Humaidan and abducted him without declaring the location where they were going, nor identifying themselves. His family sought information about him in different police stations and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) without receiving any information. After 19 hours without news on his whereabouts, Humaidan called his family for 20 seconds to inform them that he is alive, and that he is at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) being interrogated without the presence of his lawyer.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights believes that the arbitrary arrest of Ahmed Humaidan is solely related to his legitimate work as a photographer and his activity in documenting protests and police attacks, which has led to exposing the severe human rights violations by the authorities in Bahrain.

Photo: Photojournalist Mazen Mahdi in an archive photo while targeted by police. In a similar situation, on the 28th of December, 2012, DPA photographer and renowned photojournalist Mazen Mahdi was arrested by police while covering a protest.

“ Being Arrested #Bahrain”
and after his release one hour later he tweeted:
“The reason for stopping me was not participating in anything but for taking pictures .. Apparently @moi_bahrain thinks cameras weapons!”

This was the second time Mahdi was arrested in just the month of December, 2012, which the BCHR believes is an attempt to hinder his work and intimidate him.

The authorities in Bahrain have made targeting journalists a common practice since last year.

Today, another photographer, Hasan Matooq is in prison since 2011 is serving a sentence of 3 years that was handed by military court for allegations of faking photos of injuries.(Read more about his case: bahrainrights.org/en/node/4876).

BCHR demands that the Bahraini government release photographer Ahmed Humaidan, and other detainees imprisoned for their views, and peaceful work as observers of demonstrations, immediately and unconditionally. We demand the Bahraini government to allow the practice of freedom of expression without being targeted.